Tokyo

• Tokyo is huge. Keep a metro map with you. Buy a Suica card to pay for the metro fare. Book a hotel closer to either Shinjuku or Tokyo station.
• The best of Tokyo can be covered in a single day. Top of the line for us were Senso-ji, Metropolitan Building, Shinjuku Gyoen and Shibuya Cross, each for a different reason.
• Disneyland is half hour by train and takes one full day. Be flexible for the day you choose factoring in the rain as it may be a dampener.

Tokyo is among the most sorted capital cities that you will find on this planet. You land at Haneda or Narita and you will start finding visual aids to help you in right direction. Displayed on floors, walls or electronic boards, you just need to have eyes and a mind to find these instructions and you can cover entire city. Google Maps is handy in a broader way. There are information centres at almost every busy node to help you out in case. We landed at Narita and took a Skyliner to Nippori. Another train to Kanda from Nippori and we were checking in at our hotel room within three hours of landing - which included immigration checks, baggage checks, collecting data sim & pocket wifi, getting our JR Pass and collecting our pre-booked Skyliner tickets from airport.

Tokyo from Metropolitan Building

Devprayag

• Devprayag is a half day trip from Rishikesh although to be fair, it needs a full day to appreciate the drive and the point. 
• Roads are in perfect condition and well managed. There are very few good restaurants and no petrol pump before Devprayag so plan accordingly. 
• The river Ganges flow to your right all the way to Devprayag which throws multiple viewpoints to saviour. Take a break now and then and appreciate the work of mother nature on these hills.

Devprayag is one of those gems that are not hidden but surrounded by bigger gems and hence ignored. In itself it is worthy of a day trip as we figured while standing at the merging point of two distinctly coloured rivers. The holy incantations and energetic crowd only help create a captivating zone around this point which is in a shape of cake slice.

View of Devprayag from top

Shivpuri

• Shivpuri is home to rafting. White sand river-side used to be perfect for camping as well although recently that has been prohibited by Green Tribunal.
• Stay at a nearby resort or makeshift camps close to Ganges. It is better than Rishikesh for those who come to avoid the hustle of city.
• Rishikesh is 20 minutes drive from here. You can plan for evening aarti and dinner at chotiwala and comfortably come back by 9.

We reached Rishikesh at 2 and immediately hit traffic. The way Rishikesh has developed, a bypass merges into the city right at the middle of the busiest road. We crawled and reached Shivpuri at 3. To our utter disappointment, the riverside camps were moved sideways away from the Ganges. Now it attracted mostly bachelors. We decided to go back to Rishikesh but found a good resort called Bull's Retreat close by.

View from near Bull's Retreat Resort

Chail

• Visit during March-April for 3 days. Nights are cold but it is less crowded and more pleasant weather wise.
• Stay at Chail Palace for a royal experience. Plan a visit to nearby market for lunch as the lazy morning and cold evening are mostly to be spent inside the resort.
• Drive / trek to Kali Tibba, Cricket Ground and Wildlife Sanctuary. Chail is small town for a relaxing weekend. 

Taking a detour from Kandaghat, it takes one hour to reach Chail - a small hill town near Shimla. Being small works in favour for those seeking seclusion amid a decent infrastructure. We had booked two rooms in the Himneel Block of Chail Palace which is an actual palace converted into a hill resort by the Himachal Tourism. We were the only ones staying in this block and the sense of freedom this gave us was a very happy one.

Sunset from Chail Palace

Top 5 travel circuits from Delhi

Delhi - Agra - Fatehpur Sikri - Bharatpur - Mathura - Vrindavan - Delhi

Delhi - Sariska - Jaipur - Ajmer - Neemrana - Delhi

Delhi - Haridwar - Mussoorie - Kanatal - Tehri - Rishikesh - Delhi

Delhi - Jim Corbett - Nainital - Mukteshwar - Delhi

Delhi - Chandigarh - Kasauli - Shimla - Kufri - Chail - Delhi

Delhi - Agra - Fatehpur Sikri - Bharatpur - Mathura - Vrindavan - Delhi

• Can be covered in 2 days flat 
• Includes 4 UNESCO World Heritage Sites 
• Stay overnight at Bharatpur, near the gates of Keoladeo National Park

Bharatpur Bird Sactuary

Golkonda Fort

• Golconda Fort is a major attraction of Hyderabad. Trek to the top on an October morning is heavenly. The whole city is visible.
• Take as little baggage as possible. Take water and some food. The top of fort is a huge terrace where one can sit and relax for hours.
• A digression from main path will take you to one of the edges from where view of the city is uninterrupted. Steep fall below and chill air with the landscape in front is a view to behold.

We visited Golkonda Fort first thing in the morning. Still it was 11. Thanks to the incessant rainfall for last four days, the air will chilly and there was ample greenry around. In front of us was the grand Golkonda, famous for its sound system.

Golkonda Fort

Charminar

• Hyderabad is a crowded city. Most important roads lead to Charminar and are perennially congested. Most of the good hotels are in Banjara Hills area.
• Charminar, Chowmahalla Palace, Mecca Masjid and central market are all stone throw to each other. One can spend full day exploring these and trying hyderabadi delicacies around.
• Paradise Hotel famous for the Hyderabadi Biryani is nearby. So is Karachi Bakery, famous for the fruit cookies.

Charminar is a charming relic of rich old Hyderabad. The imposing tower sits at the centre of city at a cross-road that is perennially crowded. We reached simultaneously at around 4 PM, one coming from periphery of the city, other from the airport. It was the most apt place to meet in Hyderabad. Quickly we submitted our heavy bags at a nearby cloak room as bags are not allowed inside Charminar. It made movement easy.

Charminar, Hyderabad

Darjeeling

Gangtok - Tsomgo - Namchi - Darjeeling

• You need to walk a lot given the traffic situation in Darjeeling. Tea estate will take a good half day. Toy train will take another half. Carry an umbrella for sure.

• Glenary's is a complete food destination. A restaurant at the top and a bar at the bottom complement the bakery at the ground floor. Sit at the balcony and enjoy a pastry.

• Avoid Tiger Hill. The itinerary is too tiresome - waking up at 3 and counting on a clear sky is too much for a cloudy Darjeeling.

Darjeeling was once the queen of hill stations. The world heritage toy train was a marvel. The tea estates were part of many a travel wishlists. No more. Old buildings, dirty narrow walkways and congested roads support a crowd of tourist who come to see the glorious town of old but leave disappointed.

Happy Valley Tea Estate

Namchi

Gangtok - Tsomgo - Namchi - Darjeeling

• Take a cab to cover Samdruptse and Char Dham. They are in opposite directions so it will take couple hours each to cover them. We paid 10$ for this.

• Stay in Namchi although its a small city. A better plan is to move to Darjeeling or Gangtok and spend the evening there. Both are three hours away from Namchi.

• Start early if you are not staying at Namchi. Late in the evening the availability of transport options to move out of the city simply dry up.

Namchi came up on tripadvisor as one of the top five destinations within Sikkim. It was roughly on our way from Gangtok to Darjeeling so we went for it. How wrong we were. Not that Namchi disappointed us, but the road from Namchi to Darjeeling is so much in tatters that we were jittery all the way.

Shiva Statue, Namchi

Tsomgo

Gangtok - Tsomgo - Namchi - Darjeeling

• Nathula is closed on Monday and documents are to be submitted (including passport size photographs) one day in advance so plan accordingly.

• Better come with warm clothes else you will have to take reused ones on rent. The trip goes to a height of 14k feet. At this altitude even oxygen is thin.

• Go for the bunker of Baba Harbhajan Singh beyond Kupup. There is shrine much before the bunker where most people go but thats not real.

A trip to Nathu La is expected when you visit Gangtok. We didn't take it. In fact we crossed Nathu La from a mile and didn't take it. We were told its overhyped - being one of the three motorable roads to China from India does not mean you will see something out of the world. Instead we went for the farthest village called Kupup beyond which lies the shrine of soldier Harbhajan Singh.

Tsomgo Lake

Gangtok

Gangtok - Tsomgo - Namchi - Darjeeling

• Book an early flight to Bagdogra and take a cab from there for Gangtok. Else you will reach late and tired and the day will be lost. Cover Banjhakri Waterfalls on first evening. Its refreshing.

• Cover the three viewpoints and MG Road on second day. You may want to cover one of the monasteries (Rumtek, Ranka) the same day.

• Sikkim Rum is a local brand which has become quite famous. Numerous shops sell it on MG Road. Try it with pastries from Baker's Cafe.

As we settled on our table in the restaurant located on the top floor of a hotel, hunger became secondary. Across the window the clouds were playing with mountains and our entire span of view was filled with this landscape. It was our introduction with Gangtok and I immediately fell to it.

View of Gangtok from Ganesh Tok

Patna Sahib

• The road from Patna to Patna Sahib is congested and busy with limited parking facility. Start early or take a train to Patna City and from there take an auto-rickshaw.
• A walk to holy Ganges through Kangan Ghat is a good idea but takes some time as the river has receded further.
• Visit Agam Kuan and Kumharar en route, famous for events related to Emperor Ashoka who used to run his vast empire from Patliputra.

It may sound strange that I was born and brought up in Patna and yet I never visited Patna Sahib before. The birth place of the Tenth Sikh Guru Govind Singh is something I was not keen to keep out of my blog for long. Hence the visit this winter was a relief.

Inside Patna Sahib

Tehri

• Tehri is only fifty miles from Rishikesh through a spectacularly tortuous road. We happened to be in Mussoorie which is equidistant but uphill.
• The relocated town of New Tehri is unique  and on the way. It is reminiscent of the historic town that had to be flooded to provide for the reservoir dam.
• Tehri is growing into a water-sport hub at Koti. Don't miss the speed boating at Tehri reservoir among the high hills.

The road to Tehri is among the most tortuous one. A whole living city was dismantled and rehabilitated to accommodate a man made reservoir. New Tehri in that sense is a rare specimen of human ingenuity. It was close to noon when we passed the strikingly uniform houses of this city. Our destination, however, was a place called Panch Koti at the banks of Tehri dam.

Expanse of Tehri Reservoir